M OTIVATION , A BILITY AND O PPORTUNITY

Consumer behavior varies with the amount of effort that consumers put into their consumption. According to consumer behavior theory, there are three critical factors that affect this effort: motivation, ability and opportunity (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010).

Motivation

Motivation is defined as “an inner state of arousal that provides energy needed to achieve a goal” (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010, pp.45). Motivation creates willingness to expend time and energy to engage in the goal oriented behaviors and it also affect how people process information and make decisions. Motivation is influenced by personal relevance, perceived risk and consistency with attitudes.

Personal relevance is the extent to which it has a direct bearing on and significant implications on life. For a product or service to be relevant, it needs to be consistent with self-concept, values, needs and goals. The self-concept is described as a mental view of who we are, how we view ourselves and how we think others view us. Values are defined as our beliefs about what is right, important or good. Consumers also find things personally relevant when they have a bearing on activated needs (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). In a DRS setting, this means that if the consumer feels that he or she has a need for digital receipts, DRS will also feel more relevant to him or her. A need can be defined as “ an internal state of tension caused by disequilibrium from ideal/desired physical or psychological state”

(Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010, pp.50). There are different types of needs and different ways of categorizing them. One famous model of needs is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs that suggests that needs could be categorized into a basic hierarchy. Goals are also important determinants of personal relevance and motivation. They are outcomes that we would like to achieve and how we feel about something depends on whether or not it is consistent with our goals (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). Goals by using DRS could be, for example, to make expenses reports, keep track of expenses or become more environmental friendly.

Perceived risk is the extent to which the consumer is uncertain about the consequences of an action. This perceived risk is high if the outcome is more likely to be negative than positive.

Perceived risk can be associated with any product or service, but tend to be higher when 1) little information is available, 2) the offer is new, 3) the price is high, 4) the offering is technological complex, 5) the brands differ substantially, 6) the consumer have little confidence or experience in the evaluation of the product or 7) when the opinions of others are important (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). There are different types of risk, for example, financial risk, performance risk, social risk, privacy risk and security risk. However, from a consumer point of view it could be difficult to assess and differentiate the various risks dimensions meaningfully, especially if they have little experience with the product or service from before (Koenig-Lewis, et al., 2010). DRS is a new service, and little information is available. The price is low, so there is no financial risk, however, it could be considered technological complex and consumers have little experience to evaluate the service.

Therefore, it could be a high-perceived risk associated with the service. Studies have showed that perceptions of risk vary across and within cultural groups. For example, younger consumers take more risks than older consumers (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010).

A last factor affecting motivation is the extent to which new information is consistent with previous knowledge or attitude. When a message is moderately inconsistent with previous knowledge or attitude, people tend to be more motivated to process the message because such message is perceived as moderately threatening or uncomfortable. On the other hand, consumers are less motivated if the message is highly inconsistent with prior attitudes (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010).

Ability

Motivation may not result in action if the consumer does not have the ability or competence to process the information or making the decision. Ability can be defined as the extent to which degree the consumer has the resources needed to make an outcome happen. Factors that influence our ability to process information and make decisions are knowledge, experience, cognitive style, complexity of information, intelligence, education, age and money (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010).

Consumer’s product and service knowledge varies. Consumers can gain knowledge about a product or service through advertising, sales interactions, information provided by friends or media, previous decision-making, product/service usage or memory. The interaction with these different factors clearly affects how consumers make decisions and process information (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). A consumer that has previous knowledge about DRS might, therefore, be more positive to the service.

Consumers also differ in cognitive style; their preferences of how information should be presented. Some prefer verbal information, and others visual information (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010).

Complexity of information also affects consumer’s ability to process information and make decisions. When information becomes more complex people’s ability to process it decreases. Studies indicate that consumers find technical and quantitative information more difficult to handle, than nontechnical and qualitative data (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). DRS is a technological based service and could therefore be seen as complex.

Intelligence, education and age have also been related to the ability to process information and make decisions. For example, consumers that are more intelligent and have more education can process information easier than someone less educated (Hoyer and Macinnes,

2010). This means that people with higher education might be able to process information about DRS easier.

A lack of money also affects the ability to make a decision. If the consumer does not have the money needed to engage in the behavior they are constrained in their ability (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). To use DRS the consumer need computer or smartphone access, this requires financial resources.

Opportunity

Consumer’s opportunity to engage is the final factor affecting if motivation will result in action. Even if motivation and ability are high, someone might not take the action because of lack of time, distraction or other factors that affect the ability to act (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010). So if a consumer has the motivation and ability to use DRS, the consumer may not, because of the lack of opportunity.

Time is one of the factors that might affect consumer’s opportunity since the consumer under time pressure will engage in limited information processing. Another factor could be distraction. Distraction refers to any aspect of a situation that diverts consumer’s attention.

Amount, repetition and control over information can also affect consumer’s opportunity to process a message. If the consumer is repeatedly exposed to information, he or she can more easily process it because they then have more chances to think about it and remember the information (Hoyer and Macinnes, 2010).